


Some Introductions

by itdefiesimagination



Series: Statistics and Kitchenware Analogies [2]
Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anxiety Attacks, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 18:13:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6019987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itdefiesimagination/pseuds/itdefiesimagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon wakes up early, a first date doesn't go as planned, and Amy Dyer lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> (From the writer of the In The Flesh AU you never asked for and never wanted: A CONTINUATION of the In The Flesh AU you never asked for and never wanted. [theme music])

It was 7:00 AM on a Monday morning and it felt, unfortunately, like all 7:00 AMs on all Monday mornings feel. 

Simon had his arms crossed over Kieren’s keyboard, his head resting forehead-down on his arms. A corner of his brain, the corner farthest back and the only one still awake, decided that if anyone walked in he’d just tell them he’d been meditating. Or praying. 

Suddenly, from the doorway: “Hey.”

Simon snapped his head up. “I was praying!” 

“All weekend?” Kieren didn’t quite smile. Sounded in good spirits, though, as he made his way into the office. His eyes made a quick pass around the room, still unaccustomed to the place. 

He was a little blurry around the edges, or at least that’s how Simon was experiencing him right now, but upon seeing Simon hunched at his computer he tossed his bag on the floor by the desk and hurried around to get a look at the screen. There, offset against a blue background, was a little white box with a blinking cursor set permanently to the left. 

“Oh my god, have I got a password?” Kieren asked, excitedly. 

“Yes,” said Simon, much less excitedly. “But it’s just password1234 right now. You can change it once you log in.” 

“Is that not a good password?”

“What year are you from?” 

“My family has this weird thing about technology. We all share one laptop. I say laptop. I mean desktop computer.” 

“Well, that’s just . . . horrifying. That feels like an attack. On me. Personally,” Simon said, wondering if he was avoiding looking at Kieren by chance or on purpose. _Well. If he was wondering about it, it was probably on purpose, wasn’t it? Jesus Christ._ He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at himself. “Anyway, you’re all set up here,” he said. “I’ve connected you to the – you know – this thing.” He circled his finger around in the air to indicate the office Cloud. 

“Thank you, seriously,” Kieren said. He opened his mouth as if to continue, then pressed it closed again in a hard line. His features had gone nervous, and he kneaded one hand with the other. “Hey, I was wondering - this is gonna sound so stupid – but I was sort of –”

“Morning, gorgeous." Amy Dyer had reached out and grabbed Kieren's shoulders from behind. He jumped, visibly terrified, before realizing who she was, breathing out. 

“Kieren, actually,” he corrected. 

“What?” She blinked at him. 

“His name,” said Simon. “It’s Kieren.” 

“Ah, yes,” Amy said, her face and voice falling to imitate Simon. “Kieren.” She reached for Kieren's hand and shook it once, hard. Mock military. 

She smiled, snapping back to herself. “But Introductions schmintroductions,” she said.

 _Schmintroductions_ , Simon mouthed to himself. 

“Simon’s already told me all about you.”

“What?” Kieren threw an instinctive, half-accusatory glance at Simon. 

“No, I haven’t, Amy,” Simon said, through gritted teeth. 

Amy squinted at him, before her eyes widened. “Oh right, yeah,” she said, slowly. She looked at Simon ( who was mortified), then looked at Kieren (who was one-third concerned with having his question cut off, one-third concerned with Amy’s strangeness, and one-third concerned with the fact that he'd been talked about behind his back), then made a conscious (obvious) effort to backtrack. “See, he doesn’t say much, Simon. Sometimes I make up his side of the conversation to keep myself entertained. It makes my day go by a lot faster, but it can cause some confusion. So that’s my bad.”

She patted Simon’s shoulder. He winced. 

Hurtling past the awkward lurch in conversation, Amy turned her attention back to Kieren. “Anyway, the vastly more interesting version of Simon in my head tells me that you’re an artist!”

“Yes. Sure,” Kieren said. He side-eyed her a bit, thrown by her energy and still not completely convinced that he hadn’t been spied on. 

“That’s brilliant, that is. Love art.”

“All of it?” Kieren joked. 

“Absolutely all of it. Actually, did you know that - ”

“Amy was just going?” Simon cut in, widening his eyes pointedly in her direction. She widened hers in response and nodded, slowly. 

“Yes, of course, _lots_ of work to do. I’ll just be over at my desk, talking to my interesting, imaginary Simon,” she said, in the sort of voice someone uses when they absolutely, without a doubt, _don’t_ have lots of work to do and are absolutely, without a doubt, lying. She put a hand up to one side of her mouth so she could whisper to Kieren without Simon seeing: “That Simon’s much more polite.”

Flashing them both a final, wide smile, she hitched her bag up on her shoulder and started off back to her desk. She took the long way round, just so she could greet every single employee in person. Only a few acknowledged her. 

“She’s so . . . awake,” said Kieren, dazed as he watched her go. 

“She certainly is.” 

“You two’re friends, though,” Kieren said. It wasn't a question. 

“Yes. I’ve met her Nan. Twice. And it was as excruciatingly awkward as it sounds, in case you were wondering.”

“I definitely was," Kieren laughed. Stopped himself. Re-routed awkwardly, “Um . . . also wondering –”

"Very smooth," Simon congratulated, teasing. 

Kieren tipped his head in acknowledgement and rolled his eyes at himself. “Thank you," he said. "It just occurred to me that I told you a lot of really weird, personal stuff last Friday.” The sentence inflected upward like a question. 

“Likewise.” 

“So, I know it’s Monday, but I thought maybe you’d want to go somewhere.”

Simon tilted his head. 

“Like, out,” Kieren tried to clarify. 

A pause.

“Like, with me.”

Another. 

“Like, tonight.” 

Simon blinked rapidly, raising his eyebrows. His palms were sweating, which was strange, because they’d never once done that before, and he was sure he knew all of his stress reactions by now. He stuttered out, “Well. First off. Congratulations on making it to the end of that sentence.” 

“Not as easy as it looks. Not exactly how I planned it in my head, either,” Kieren laughed, letting out a breath. 

“I know what you mean,” said Simon. He’d spent all of last Friday afternoon spouting off nonsense he hadn’t planned. He played casual now. Or tried to. Desperately. “I’ve not got anything on so –” 

His eye caught on Amy, who had made it back to her desk and was now holding up a single piece of white copy paper. On it, in black sharpie, she’d scratched out one word:

**BE**

Simon squinted in her direction, confused.

After a second or two, Amy crumpled her paper into a ball and aimed it at the trash. Scribbled out another word. Lifted a new piece of paper:

**A**

Toss. Scribble. New paper:

**PERSON**

Toss. Scribble: 

**SIMON!**

She’d made a smiley face out of the ‘O’ in ‘Simon’, and she was giving him an aggressive thumbs up. 

Simon scowled at her. And at the pre-8:00 AM world in general. “Sorry. I'm . . .”

He wracked his brain for what he was. 

Kieren was staring at him – his expression bouncing along the spectrum between nervous anticipation and nervous confusion. Which wasn’t exactly ideal. Simon scrambled for an excuse and settled on “. . . Not a morning person.”

“But I’m free tonight,” he added, too quickly, distracted by the dual clunks of Amy’s boots as she set them up on her desk and leaned dangerously far back in her chair. Jesus Christ, for all the time he’d known her, Simon had never once wished that Amy would stop being so _Amy_ , but sometimes he did wish she’d be _Amy_ somewhere a bit farther away from him and at a more opportune time. 

Either Kieren hadn’t noticed Simon’s momentary distraction, or he’d ignored it, or he was suffering from some stray thoughts of his own. That last one seemed the most likely, considering the way he was fidgeting, smoothing and re-smoothing his hair where it tapered at the back of his neck. 

“Well,” Kieren began. Laughed self-effacingly. “The other thing is that I don’t exactly have a car. We could take the train, but then we’d have to go separately? To wherever we’re going? Which seems a bit weird. Is that normal - for people to arrive separately and then meet up?” 

Simon shrugged, then smiled and asked, “You’re asking me if I want to pick _you_ up so you can take me out?”

“That’s pretty much it, yeah.”

“Charming."

Kieren made a sad, strange face. “I – sorry. Sorry,” he said. 

A severe reaction. Simon felt (and was) a little out of the loop, and Kieren’s face was red with embarrassment. He must’ve felt himself flushing and then must’ve realized that it made him look even younger than he already did. He looked down and away, anxious ticks kicking into gear - one finger tapping at the space between his eyebrows.

“No. No, don’t worry about it,” Simon said, meaning to sound more reassuring than he did. Hadn’t meant to come off teasing. “It’s fine.”

“Do you have an address? It’s so I can pick you up,” he reassured. “Not planning a home invasion or anything.”

Kieren’s face was slowly, blotchily returning to its normal color. “I don’t know. Home invasion thing’s pretty specific, considering you’re ‘not planning’ one,” he said. 

“You got me.” Simon put his hands up in concession. “I desperately want to rob you.” 

“Sounds great,” Kieren said, mouth pursing into a wry smile as he scratched out his address. 

He handed the paper to Simon, said, “You’ll pick me up at 8?”

“You’ll take me out at 8.” Simon nodded, and Kieren started a little (head twitched up) at the validation of his strange request. 

Neither spoke for a moment, each finding it odd that the other wasn’t moving. 

Then Kieren smiled again – the same way, like he was trying hard not to smile and failing. “You’re sort of in my chair,” he said. 

Simon made a sound, stood abruptly. 

***

 

It was 8:25 and Kieren was doubled over in the front seat of Simon’s car, elbows on his knees, hands pressed to either side of his face. 

“Are you – ” 

Kieren shook his head. “Two – seconds.” 

“Right.” 

Six minutes passed in near-complete silence, with Kieren breathing erratically (inhaling more than he was exhaling), his hands alternating almost subconsciously between his face and throat. It sounded like he might be crying, but Simon was trying to look at him as infrequently as possible. 

“Do you . . .” he started to ask, wondering if Kieren was listening, or if he could even hear him. Wondering if he should call someone. He wasn’t good at this. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“Not really. But I understand – if – ” Kieren held up a hand, or at least he thought he did. He perceived all of his actions about three seconds later – and about three inches farther away – than expected. “Wait. Please,” he said. 

Another six minutes, and Simon thought to roll down his windows. 

***

 

“That was so embarrassing. I’m so sorry,” Kieren said when he finally felt able to put full sentences together again. 

“No. I know what those are like. For me, at least. Are you all right?” 

“Ha. Not generally.” 

Simon wasn’t sure if he should laugh. 

“I mean, full disclosure, but I’ve been – ridiculously nervous about this all day,” Kieren admitted. The spaces between his words were still either too long or too short, but he pressed on. “And for some reason, the thought of actually going in there right now is just . . .” He sat up straight and took a breath. Rose and fell with the breath. Looked out the window toward the restaurant where he'd meant to take them. Looked angry at himself. “So, just so you know, this isn’t what I had planned.”

“Would’ve been kind of weird if you had.” 

“I guess.” 

More silence, but only six seconds this time. 

“Do you need some air?”

“I do, yeah.” 

***

 

One full lap around the restaurant took about seven minutes, if you managed to dodge the sizable rock situated just behind the vents that let out the steam from the kitchen. They’d done the route four times now, Simon had tripped over the rock twice, and they were both starting to get dizzy from the circling. 

“You don’t have to keep apologizing," Simon said, annoyance accidentally filtering into his voice. He caught it, though, forced it out. "To be honest, I’m just surprised you want anything to do with me." 

“What?” Kieren stopped walking for a minute to stare at him. “I like you,” he said, before realizing how that sounded and diverting quickly. “And Amy from work likes you. If a person like that likes you, you can’t be all that bad." 

“Sound logic,” Simon admitted. 

“What’s her deal anyway, Amy? Didn’t think people came like that anymore.” 

“Came like what? Nice?”

“Yes,” Kieren said, free of any sarcasm, like he wasn’t responding to a joke. 

The sudden earnestness took Simon off guard. He shrugged, hands in his pockets. “Just the way she is, I guess. Though, I think part of it’s . . .” He faltered for a moment, wondering if Amy would want this part of her life, the decidedly _un_ -happy-go-lucky part, out in the open. Probably not, but he made the wrong choice and said, “She’s got leukemia. Doctors put her time of death at around seven months ago. It’s a miracle she’s still here, really.”

“She beat it?” Kieren said, sounding impressed. 

“No.” 

The floor dropped out from under the conversation, then, and they fell into weighty silence, both averting their eyes to the ground. 

Kieren kicked at the gravel a bit before finally speaking up. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s the one you should be saying that to, not me,” said Simon, laughing on an exhale. “Not that she’d ever let you feel sorry for her.” 

“No, I just mean I’m sorry.” Kieren paused to rephrase. “I will be sorry when she’s not around. I think.” 

“Me too.” 

Again, silence – this time broken by Simon. 

“But Amy’s never let herself live down to anyone’s expectations. If she knew we’d had this conversation, she’d probably outlive us both just to prove a point.” Simon smiled humorlessly. His chest felt heavy, like he had a cold (he didn’t have a cold), and he found himself suddenly, violently eager to change the subject. “Anyway,” he said, “we shouldn’t talk about her behind her back. Might summon her.” 

 

***

They eventually staked out one of the curb stops along the side of the restaurant. A few couples, or families, or people dining alone walked the sidewalk to which they had backs turned, but no one paid any attention to them. They sat. It was starting to get cold. 

“Is that why you tried?” Simon asked and immediately winced at his own euphemism. Felt like he was patronizing the both of them – considering. When he continued, he meant to keep his tone casual. Couldn’t. “Because of him?” 

Kieren laughed as though the suggestion were a complete surprise to him. “Because of him?” he said. “No. Jesus. No, at least I don’t think so. Helped things along though, didn’t he. ” 

_Fuck_ you, Simon almost said. A sudden jolt of resentment/jealousy tensed his jaw. How nice to have someone to kill yourself over.

But he grit his teeth imperceptibly, hated himself for a second, and regained composure. 

“. . . So why then?” he asked.

Kieren seemed to notice the shift in his tone; he shook his head a little, incredulous. “I don’t know,” he said. For a few seconds, he cast his eyes around helplessly (out across the parking lot, at Simon, anywhere but at Simon, back out across the lot), before pulling a question from nowhere: “Why’re you wearing grey right now?”

Simon made to speak, to say he wasn’t sure, but Kieren seemed set on answering for him. 

“Because,” Kieren said, “when you woke up today, your brain decided, without your permission, that it liked a certain color. It decided that you were gonna wear that color. So there you go, simple as that – you’re wearing grey. Your brain decided. It’s just what happened to you, and now you’ve got to live with it.” 

It all sounded rehearsed, and it was. A fact that Kieren tried hard to bury with a caveat:

“Right?” he said. “This – it – it’s like that, but you don’t get to try again the next morning.”

A few beats passed before Kieren shrugged off his own wisdom. “But who knows, really? Who cares?” 

Whether or not that was an appeal for an actual answer, Simon wasn’t sure. But he didn’t have one, so he said instead, “You know you’re a really interesting person?” Which, it seemed, was something neither of them had been expecting him to say.

“No.” Kieren shook his head, scoffing to hide a smile. “This is everything I’ve got, really. You’re getting all my interesting in one go. Now I’m not gonna have any left.”

“For next time?”

Kieren looked up, worried. He frowned in Simon’s direction. “Sorry. I guess I shouldn’t . . . I assumed . . . ”

“No, I’d like to. See you again.”

“Good,” Kieren said. Then, realizing that didn’t sound quite right, amended: “I mean, thanks? And same to you. And I promise that this type of thing won’t happen again.”  
He looked back over his shoulder significantly, toward the restaurant. Simon didn’t follow his sight line. Looked at him instead. 

“Not really something you can promise, is it?” 

Kieren nodded. “True. Complete lie.” 

Before either had a chance to feel bad about that, quote, complete lie, Simon pulled his jacket tighter around himself. Said, “It’s 9:30, and we still haven’t eaten, and I’m hungry. I didn’t say anything about it because you were in the middle of a deeply personal story.”

“I’m also hungry, and I _also_ didn’t say anything about it because I was in the middle of a deeply personal story.”

“Coincidence,” said Simon. 

“So weird,” Kieren agreed. 

They laughed, but the sound quickly petered out to awkward silence. Luckily, though, the lot was starting to fill up and the Tetris game of cars slotting themselves into place provided an excuse to keep their eyes and ears occupied with something that wasn’t each other. Gold sights and sounds from the restaurant behind them clashed with the sights and sounds from the lot in front of them. 

That should’ve been stressful, Kieren thought (he didn’t do any kind of conflict), but, here, tucked down close to the ground, it wasn’t. Strange.

Both could feel it when the silence had persisted for too long: 

“So we should probably – ”

“Can I – ” 

Their voices overlapped and they shut their mouths at the same time. 

“Sorry,” Kieren said, gesturing vaguely. 

“No. Not important.” 

“I don’t want to –” 

“You’re definitely not. Go ahead.” 

“Uh.” Kieren eyed him a little suspiciously, but continued. “Yeah, so, I thought about it. Just in passing, I mean, I thought about it and I realized I kind of rushed at you yesterday in the copy room. Not sure why I did that, but I should’ve . . .” He trailed off, only pushing on when Simon made a small, inquisitive movement with his head. 

“I should’ve checked that you were . . . okay with it, I guess? So, well, you know.” Again, his voice faded to nothing. 

“I know what?” Simon asked. 

“Are you okay with it?” 

“I was. I am.” 

“Good.” 

Sidling a bit closer to Simon on curb stop, Kieren angled forward into his space and kissed him on the corner of the mouth, like a test. Simon tried his best not to lock every joint in his body, managed to keep maybe three or four of them loose. Which he considered a success. And then he was being kissed again. Was having to open his mouth this time. 

An amount of time passed, probably just a few seconds, maybe more. There were hands on either side of his face. Through his hair. 

He noticed that Kieren seemed preoccupied with hands and where they were placed and not placed. He wasn’t strong, or if he was he didn’t particularly look it or act it, but every time Simon moved to touch his face, or shoulders – anything – Kieren would lead him away gently, under the guise of holding hands or something similar. It was probably some unconscious reflex – Simon would sort through it all later, would think about the stories Kieren had told him, the feeling of living and touching on borrowed time – and he wasn’t bothered by it. 

Actually, his mind – against his will, honestly, weirdly, completely unexpectedly – conjured up an image of Kieren trying to hold him down and failing, which brought on another one of those wonderful, momentary lapses in brain activity. 

When he came back to reality, Kieren’s mouth was soft on his jaw, and he was about to be hit by a car. 

A pair of headlights swung into the parking space and landed on them. A minivan loomed, large and shadowed, behind the headlights, and Simon remembered too late that this was, after all, a restaurant parking lot. 

The woman in the front seat of the minivan stared like she’d been flash frozen in the middle of an aneurism. Her husband (or boyfriend, or best friend, or brother, or etc. – Simon didn’t want to assume. Simon didn’t want to be in this situation at all, really) was looking down, concentrating on phone. 

The woman thwacked her husband, or boyfriend, or best friend, or etc. in the center of his chest. He startled violently, looked over to the woman, his mouth making the shape of a protest that Simon couldn’t hear and that the wife, or girlfriend, or best friend, or etc. ignored. Instead, she made a hard gesture with her right hand until the man in the front seat turned his attention forward to where Simon and Kieren were sat close together on the curb stop.

The man stared at them for a few seconds, expressionless, then waved. At a loss, Simon waved back. Neither response seemed particularly agreeable to the woman, who made an angry, sweeping-away movement with her hand that indicated they either get out of the way or get run over. 

Then, she rolled down her window. Yelled, “Get out of the way or get run over!” 

“We should get out of the way,” said Simon.

“Or get run over,” said Kieren, who’d paled dramatically and looked every inch of his emotional whiplash. He still had a hand on the side of Simon’s neck. Noticing it, he slowly lifted it away, squinting through the headlights as if to gauge the reaction of the woman in the car. 

“Come on.” Simon stood, shielding his eyes and offering Kieren a hand up, which was taken immediately. They were both a little unsteady on their feet.  
Simon leaned over, furtive and close to Kieren’s ear. “Can I kiss you?” he asked. 

Kieren looked Simon in the eyes, looked to the car in front of them, then looked back, confused and grimacing at the timing of the question. “I sort of thought we’d established – ”

Simon pulled him into another kiss, this one more showy than pleasant for either of them, but they parted almost immediately and Simon bolted, laughing, pulling Kieren along by the hand. 

“Seriously?!” The woman shouted after them, though the direction they’d taken meant she had to lean partway out the window. She held down her horn and the angry sound echoed through the lot. 

***

“Oh my god, that’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Kieren lied, breathing heavily and leaning against the passenger door of Simon’s car. 

“Me too,” Simon lied back. 

They each held their breath for a moment, then laughed. 

***

When Kieren finally responded, his voice had taken on a dangerous wobble. 

“Oh. No. I don’t know,” he said. His fingers began to beat out a half-frantic rhythm on the window glass, like he hoped it might make a small fracture that might spider into a large fracture that might crack the entire window open that might offer him an escape route. “No. Sorry, I don’t know. I should, should probably be home.” 

The change in his tone was so drastic and obviously shaken it made Simon want to stop the car and slam his own hand in the door. Which he’d only done once. Once on purpose, at least. Fucking awful. 

“Yeah, of course. I’m sorry,” said Simon. He had the steering wheel in a death grip, eyes fixed forward. “I did just mean for dinner.” 

“No. Yeah, I know, but it’s – you know.” 

“Sure.”

They drove the rest of the way in complete silence, except for Kieren’s tapping on the glass. 

***

 

Simon put the car in park. He’d been composing, in his head, the whole drive back, a goodbye that doubled as an apology and tripled as an offer to drive them both to work the next morning, and he was opening his mouth to get it out when Kieren turned in his seat. 

“What were you going to make me for dinner?” he said.

“ _?_ ” Simon thought. 

He frowned and shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. I was gonna figure something out. Hopefully.”

“Sounds good.” 

“Sorry?”

“That sounds good.” 

Simon stared at him, trying to read his face, but Kieren was looking out the window up his own driveway, toward his own house. His body was relaxed, though, and the tapping had stopped.

“I’ll have you home by two,” said Simon.

“If you like.” 

Simon stuttered. (In his head. In his head, he stuttered. In reality, he didn’t make a sound.) The gear lever stuck a little, creaking loudly into drive. 

***

 

“Stand.”

Simon stood.

“Wait. No. Sit.”

Simon sat. 

Hands jittery and uncoordinated, Kieren struggled to undo the top button of his shirt, failed once, kept trying, failed again, flicked his eyes to the corner of the room and kept trying, then made a face at the ground and gave up. He shook out his hands, once, before making his way across the room. When he was standing between Simon’s knees, he looked down, bent down. 

“Sorry. I’m nervous.” He breathed the words into Simon’s mouth, and Simon closed his eyes. 

Just staying alive had always been work. Finding and paying for drugs had been work, trying to die had been work, failing to die had been work, rehab had been work, putting himself back together had been work. Never any time to be passive. These days, if Simon was honest with himself (which he was about half the time, but getting better), he was happy enough just letting things happen to him. 

“It’s fine,” he said. 

***

 

“Did you two passionately embrace?”

“What? No.” 

Amy groaned and swung herself back and forth in her chair. “Ah. Well. Life continues to disappoint me,” she said, toeing halfheartedly at the base of her desk. 

“We had a nice time, if you’re asking,” Simon said.

“And yet you didn’t once embrace? Passionately?”

“None of your business, and we had a conversation.” 

“Ooh, conversation?” Amy caught on the words and reeled herself in, around the desk, closer to Simon. 

“One of Simon Monroe’s World Famous Conversations. Did you talk about me?”

“We did, actually,” he said. 

“Gasp! What about?”

“Nothing in particular. He likes you.” 

This was, apparently, not what Amy wanted to hear. She rolled her eyes. “Of course he likes me. Who doesn’t? I mean does he know about . . .,” she dropped her voice and leaned low over the desk, “ _my condition_?”

“It came up,” said Simon with as much nonchalance as he could manage. 

“Shocker.” Voice flat, Amy fell back into her chair. “Did he express great sorrow?” she asked. “When will I be receiving my sorry-you’re-dying gift basket full of wrapped chocolates and elaborately shaped fruits? I depend on those. I haven’t gone grocery shopping in months.”

“Amy,” he chastised, shooting her a look over the top of his monitor. 

“I’m joking,” she said, but her tone had gone a bit cold. Colder than usual, and clipped. She fired the look back at him, and Simon softened a bit in response. 

They had an unsaid agreement, of sorts – that they’d trade off bad days; only one allowed to be upset or angry at any given time. (Exceptions included: 1) the days after disagreeable political events, as they both had pretty deep investments in certain outcomes, 2) work related incidents, i.e. whenever they were forced to past five, or the time they’d mysteriously lost a quarter of their shared files, and 3) in Amy’s words: “You know, obvious extenuating circumstances.”) It kept unnecessary fights to a minimum, even though Amy rarely claimed days for herself and Simon knew he took too many. 

“He didn’t – I don’t know – condescend, if that’s what you’re getting at. Just says he’ll miss you. Sweet, really,” Simon tried to explain. 

“You lot do love me,” Amy said, wistfully. 

“What do you mean?”

“You sad people.” She waved her hand at him. “I’m very good for you.” 

“Careful. Sometimes I think you’re secretly one of us."

Amy pressed a hand to her chest. Feigning shock, but regarding him with a sudden, genuine fondness. “Me?!” she gasped. “How dare you, Simon?”

“Quietly, and not very often,” he said. Pressed his lips together to smile. 

“Ah. Speaking of.” Amy grinned and significantly refocused her sight line to some point beyond Simon’s head. Simon turned to see where she was looking, but Kieren was already coming to a stop next to his desk. He was holding a stack of papers that looked like a pretense.

“Hey,” he said brightly.

“Happy Tuesday, handsome,” Amy said. 

Simon flashed her a disapproving face, then turned to Kieren. “She means happy Tuesday.” 

“I mean no such thing.” 

“Hi, Amy,” Kieren conceded with a small wave. 

But Amy didn’t wave back, disregarding the greeting entirely and moving straight on to outrage, addressing them both (and, volume wise, the entire office). “I cannot believe you two went out on a Monday night. What are you, 86?” 

“Places are so crowded on the weekends, though, aren’t they?” Kieren said, his hand resting on the back of Simon’s chair. 

“Oh, for God’s sake. My point, exactly. That’s something an 86-year-old would say.” 

Simon meant to rally some sort of defense, had even opened his mouth to retaliate, but closed it when he felt Kieren’s hand move from the back of his chair to the back of his neck. Fingertips light, there, and moving from the bottom of his hairline to the top jut of his spine. Then back up again, softer. 

Leaning into Simon just a bit to hide the movement. 

“Basically, I’m saying that if you act like you’re interested in sleeping with the greeter, then it doesn’t matter how many people have reservations before you.” 

“Really?” Kieren said. His fingers changed direction and pressure, and Simon felt his stomach do an involuntary flip. 

Something similar last night: a hand up and down and up and down his back. Too intimate for what they were doing. Strange. Not unwanted. Simon had hidden his face and pretended to sleep. 

Those same patterns traced being out now. Very hard to concentrate. 

“Shouldn’t he, Simon?” He heard Amy say, then heard her repeat. A chunk of conversation must’ve gone by without him knowing. 

“Sure,” Simon managed. 

“I think I will then,” said Kieren. “I really shouldn’t be on any sort of break, though.” He sounded sheepish, but his hand continued at a confident, steady pace that left Simon equal parts impressed and furious with him. 

“Absolutely. Back to work,” said Amy, clapping twice to prompt his exit. 

Kieren smiled at her pageantry, before dropping his eyes to Simon. He dropped his hand, too, finally. (Simon breathed out.)

“I’ll see you,” he said. He made a small sound as he brushed past, not quite laughing, but getting the point across well enough. 

“Yeah,” Simon replied, a few seconds too late. 

Both he and Amy watched Kieren continue on to wherever it was he was supposed to’ve been going. Simon felt every muscle in his body relax individually, thought to himself that this whole arrangement was going to cause so many problems, but didn’t dare say it out loud. 

They sat in silence for almost a minute, him typing, her watching him type with a sort of crazed expression on her face. It was an expression he saw in his periphery, because he refused to look her in the eye, just bowed his head to type. 

Finally:

“Oh my _god_.” 

“Whatever you’re going to say, don’t say it,” he muttered. 

“You know what?” Amy paused, shaking her head at him, running her hands over her face. “I’ve got absolutely nothing to say to you. In fact, might just pop off the break room for a while.” 

“All right,” he said. His face felt hot. 

“Yes, to the break room for me. Well,” she said, swaying around to his side of the desk, a wicked smile on her face. “ _I’ll see you_.” 

A shock ran through him as she placed a hand on the back of his neck, partly because it was a freakish echo of intimacy. Mostly because her hand was ridiculously cold. 

“No!” He batted her away, his shoulders hunching up. “Absolutely not, Amy. No.”

“The two of you – that was the most obvious thing I’ve ever seen!” She pointed a finger at him like child who’d just pulled off a particularly successful prank. “Do you know what it’s like? Being your friend? All the second-hand embarrassment! It’s like radiation poisoning, Simon, just building up and building up inside me, but instead of growing extra limbs I just _cringe_ to myself in the middle of the night. One of these days, it’ll be too much for me and I’ll have to leave you.” 

“Now would be great time!” 

“Fine. I’ll _see_ you. I will see you _later_.” 

She was halfway between their corner and the break room and she still hadn’t stopped laughing at him. Then, she was all the way there and Simon could hear her with the door closed.

**Author's Note:**

> This was gay. I'm gay. Shame me. DO IT, please. 
> 
> (In the spirit of full disclosure, this is . . . so bad. And so long? Like, how did that happen? What I'm saying is: I'm sorry.)


End file.
